


The Sea Loves a Shipwreck

by Toxin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Also I apologize for any misused nautical terms and events, Captain!Laura, Corsair!Kate, Cunnilingus, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Love/Hate, Mermaids, Opposites Attract, Pirate!Laura, Pirate!everyone else, Pirates, Pirates & Mermaids AU, Treasure Hunt, Unfortunately all I've ever known is land, Women on a Mission, mermaid!lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toxin/pseuds/Toxin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adventure, death and vengeance make for some pretty exciting tales, but Captain Laura Hale cares for little else than the famous lost treasure. Too bad a mermaid with a penchant for murder seems to think the same way.</p><p>Or, </p><p>The one where Laura thinks she probably would have found the booty by now if she could tear her eyes away from said mermaid long enough to look for the damn thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea Loves a Shipwreck

**Author's Note:**

> My Main Gift for the Teen Wolf Femslash Exchange, yay! Thanks for the admins responsible for this exchange, I've had such a blast! and thank you to lovely A-thousand-years-late (Queerly-I-am-right on Tumblr) for being the supportive Beta that she is, even when the story went from being a short one-shot to a full out fic!!!
> 
> Finaly: dear alwaysthealpha, I really hope you enjoy this :P

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

The wind growled low and heavy as it crawled across the waves that came crashing against the side of the hull, sending the enormous beast of a vessel tilting precariously to its side. The boat rocked until part of the sails touched the highest of the foaming rolls, as though it were leaning on the raging water for support rather than being drowned by it, and the only thing countering the sheer force of the blasts of frigid air and rain as it bore onto the near-wreckage was the coal tainted hills of water as they rose from all sides and swayed the ship into another direction, yet again.

The sea loves a good shipwreck. At the very least, it seemed set on making it seem that way.

Many had said that the Hale wreckage had been an accident, a culmination of circumstances or an unavoidable eventuality for those who chose to live a life of travels and tides. But on nights like the one she was facing now, Laura had one hell of a time believing it was anything but purposeful.

The ocean wasn't temperamental, indecisive or any of the bullshit the other sailors had tried to feed to her over the years. No, at times like this, she was convinced it was downright feral. It lured the most fearless of men and women from around the world into its riptide, lulled them in its bask, and took the best of them down in its torrents.

Laura loathed the sea, almost as much as she craved it. Every day spent gliding across its still surface was an instant in which she found herself understanding the reason her parents had loved the ocean enough to risk their lives taming it, and hence, for a second, she found herself feeling close to them again. The ocean was all she had left of them, after all. Mostly, however, every moment she managed to stay afloat as the wind roared and shook the very structure of her ship, every evening she spent defying its pull and push and surviving its vicious attempts to end her, like it had her parents, was both a blood-rushing victory against a loyal foe as well as a giant _fuck you_ to that who had given itself the right to hurt the people she loved.

Her brother once told her that a normal person would want nothing to do with anything that wasn't shore after what had happened, but considering that he was first to sign up for this voyage, Laura deemed he had very little ground to stand on. She wasn't afraid, not like she should have been. No, she was pissed, and more than a bit vindictive.

Maybe that made her a cliché of pirate, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Cap'n!" The hoarse voice was barely audible over the bellowing of the storm, and without letting go of the rudder that seemed to want nothing more than to tear itself away from the ground before her, she turned to look at her crewman. "Cap'n!" Boyd yelled again as he slipped across the soaking deck and skidded past her as the ship rocked to the left. She reached out with one hand and grabbed his sleeve.

"What're ye doin' here!?" She yelled as a clap of thunder rivaled the drumming of the rain. "Ye should be handlin' t' trysail!"

"There be no trysail t' handle!" Boyd forced out as he got a hold of the rail and pushed himself up, resisting the blasts that attempted to force him down again. "We lost t' whole mast!"

Christ.

All she did was nod. Laura hadn't noticed, mainly because the mast wasn't actually gone per se, but rather had broke off at the bottom and rested onto the neighboring beam, threatening to take it down as well. Even now that Boyd had told her, she could barely see through the darkness and pouring water far enough to see what was actually left of her sails. She didn't blame the crew, of course. Boyd was one of her best men, and if he hadn't been able to preserve it, then there was nothing that could have been done.

Though now that she tore her eyes away from the horizon, she noticed the scene before her was slightly more defined than it had been a few moments ago, and realized with a jolt of hope that while the dark clouds coated everything the sky had to offer, some of mornings rays were making it through from the east behind her.

Light meant that the clouds were thinning. Less clouds meant the receding of the storm. If they were lucky, that meant they might actually make it out alive.

They just had to hold on for a few moments more.

"Cut it down! We'll tough t' rest without it!" She urged, unwilling to let it damage anything else were it to fall.  "Tell t' crew we'll ride ahull!" Boyd responded in affirmative.

Just a few moments more.

The sea might love a shipwreck, but Captain Hale wouldn't give it the pleasure.

***

Laura was ready to go on a rampage. The music was too loud, and yet the cacophony of cheers and screams made it near impossible to even decipher the slightest melody. A flurry of colors pranced and crashed around the room a typhoon of drunks and pretty girls, and Laura swore that if a single one made the mistake to bump into her again she'd pull out her sword on them without a moment's hesitation.

She ought to stop coming through this place, she really did.

"I heard this one was a particularly close call," Peter called over the noise and smirked at the siblings seated at his bar. He scrubbed down the counter top, not bothering to be subtle as he pushed a passed-out sailor in his wiping path out of the way and onto the floor. The man didn't even wake up. "Then again, with Laura as cap'n, is it not always precarious?" Laura rolled her eyes, and Derek didn't acknowledge him at all.

"I heard a brothel was supposed t' make money," Erica shouted as she pushed her way through the crowd, and how'd she managed to hear Peter was a mystery to Laura. "Then again, with a face like yours servin' t' drinks, I could understand  it goin' out o' business."

She raised an eyebrow in challenge and Peter's grin broadened.

"Perhaps yer right. Ye know, though, I can think o' a few things a buxom lass like you could do to get t' clients rushin' in."

"Like evisceratin' ye?" Erica replied innocently, eyes wide and lashes fluttering. "I hear the promise o' blood and death  usually attracts a crowd. Plus, t' disappearance o' an scurvy ol' rat be as good a reason to drink and celebrate as any."

" 'nough, sprogs." Laura sighed, leaning over Derek's shoulder for a better view of the map. "Maybe we missed it." She told him after a moment, resting her forehead on the back of his neck.

"No way. T' water's not all that deep in this sector anyhow. T' net would've gotten stuck in it."

Attaching a net to the hull had been Cora's idea of course. Though they all thought it was more likely for the ship to have crashed on shore, no one was willing to leave any stone unturned. They'd thus tied a net under the ship, pulled downward by weights, in order to try and feel for the remains at the bottom of the water.

The net was a hassle on the best of days, always getting stuck and ripped in weeds and corals. They spent hours on end repairing the damage, and days at times trying to figure out what they had stumbled across.

On the other hand, it also caught enough fish to provide food other than that stored on the boat, which helped keep the voyage lasting longer, and as of yet had helped them track down two ship carcasses, one of which protected one hell of a fortune in its remains.

So, not all lost. All they had to do was retrace the previous Captain Hale's steps, and they'd eventually find the wreckage they were looking for, wouldn't they?

Hence the need for Peter. While their parents had taken them out a few time as kids to experience the sea, they never brought them along on raids, preferring to wait until they grew old enough. Peter though, Peter knew the routes and targets that were familiar to their parents, which was the only reason they still came to his brothel.

That, and Malia liked to see her father every once in a while, so Laura suffered in silence.

"I know yer  not used t' bein' much of anythin' other than unpleasant, but bein' helpful would be a good change." Derek glared pointedly at Peter,  but other than giving his arm a poor excuse of slap, Laura didn’t reprimand her brother. Peter didn't seem all that insulted anyway.

"I told ye both all I know already." He shrugged, bored. "Think what ye want, but if I had a way o' gettin' ye to stop yer search and Malia t' stop riskin' her life for your futile grievin' session, I would. If t' family treasure was out thar, I would have told you its location." He stilled and smiled that creepy smile of his. "Or, you know, I would have gone for it meself."

Laura didn't trust him one bit, but she knew how greedy of a man he was. If he'd known where the wreckage was, he'd have retrieved its content and spent it by now.

"Go through t' list o' their last jobs again, see if you remember somethin' new." Laura finally ordered. Peter huffed in disbelief and threw his towel on the bar in protest, but after meeting Laura's steely stare, he complied.

 

"I don't mean to undermine your judgment or anything of the sort, I swear, and wow, starting by that makes it sound like it is exactly what I was trying to do, which I swear it wasn't, oh god, I should probably just go back inside now." Kira later found Laura sitting on the dock, watching the open sea. Laura usually forgot her newest crewmate was from a different upbringing, but with her distinct lack of local accent, especially when she fumbled with words like she did now, it hit her a little melancholically.  She felt like she'd tainted a little piece of good in the world.

Still, when Kira rose with an not-so-swift motion to her feet and stumbled a step towards shore, Laura caught her wrist. It was the girl's own doing that got her here, and Laura was all too happy with the result to care if it wasn't.

"What be it?" Laura questioned as she pulled Kira down next to her, her tone not quite hard, but not leaving much room for arguments either.

Kira shrugged and looked at her lap. "I just… I don't quite understand why we keep coming here. I mean, from what the others say, your uncle isn't of much help. Or, um, very nice either." She struggled for a second. "What are we…" She trailed off, either not knowing how to ask her question or uncertain whether she was allowed to ask at all.

The door of the brothel opened behind them, and a couple's giggles resonated through the air, along with some of the ambient sounds from within the building. The heavy door fell close rapidly, though, and soon the only noises to be heard was the hushed whispers of the lovers shuffling away and the caress of the waves against the wooden dock.

"I ask meself that regularly as well." Laura smiled, looking at the moon. It was full tonight, and for whatever reason it felt meaningful somehow. "It became clear around t' second time around that Peter didn't know all t' much more than we did. But I still have two reasons to come here."

Kira nodded, waiting for more, but as Laura was about to explain, something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Upon turning, however, she found the water calm and undisturbed.

 _Weird_. Laura's senses rarely failed her, which had her frowning.

"First, because while what Peter does know be o' very little help, what he doesn't be  much more revealin'." Kira 's eyebrows raised at that, and Laura hurried to explain. "Like today, for example, I asked him 'bout t' ships my parents had planned on accostin'."

"Like… you usually do?"  Kira asked slowly.

"Aye. However, when I asked him whether me parents had been interested in t' Mahealani trade ship because o' t' cargo it was carryin' or for t' worth o' the cargo it was carryin', Peter couldn't say." Kira nodded, but the crease remained between her brows, urging Laura for more explanation.

The reddish spot left of Laura's gaze was also back, but when Laura glanced over, there was nothing but dark waters.

"See, we assumed me parents had intercepted t' ship as it was coming into Argent territory, taking t' stock for 'emselves. But what if they let t' ship make its delivery, and took t' money the Mahealani had earned from it instead?" Kira's eyes widened. "T' storm was already brewing by then. While it'd have been relatively easy for Mahealani to come in, wind in sail, to leave-"

"They would have had to make a detour in order to use the winds." Kira smiled her open, carefree smile at that.

"Aye. We checked along the path we assumed t' ship would have taken if it had been ridin' the northwest wind. But if it was going in t' opposite direction, it couldn't have faced t' winds head on goin' southeastward. And since it couldn't go south 'cause o' t' shoreline, tomorrow, at daybreak, we'll be heading for t' Broken Cape and turning east." Laura finished.

It was clear by Kira's demeanor that she was excited about the new prospect, but Laura tried not to be. She had had her hopes up too many times now, and too often they had been left hanging. She simply looked out into the water, watching her toes thread through. "It's all dead reckoning, though." Laura added, which didn't tamper Kira's mood one bit.

"Ye know what we need!?" Stiles' voice boomed from behind them, making them both jump. He, Scott and Isaac soon came into view as they stepped into the moonlight and stumbled crookedly across the planks. Laura smirked, amused at their intoxicated states. "A meeer-maid! T'stories say they're, like, finders of treasures! M-magnets to… to…"

"Sh- shut up, gull. Mermaids don't… mermaids don't _actually_ exist." Isaac slurred in complete seriousness, though he staggered precariously close to the edge. Scott opened his mouth, probably to try and prevent the inevitable argument, but appeared to have trouble controlling his jaw, which sagged aimlessly. It didn't take long before he got distracted by his own tongue.

"You can _not_ be serious." Stiles, stated, eyes comically wide. It was an argument they'd all had before, hell, that all sailors have had at some point, but one that never seemed to die down, unfortunately. Laura groaned inwardly and rolled her eyes at Kira, who looked more fond than annoyed. Lucky her. "Mermaids are as real as t' moon, ye…ye bilge-suckin'-" Laura barely held in a laugh as Stiles squawked and found himself overboard. Truth be told, even without Isaac to push him, it was clear he would have made into the water eventually.

"Should we help 'im?" Scott squinted drunkenly at the water, finally finding his words _after_ Stiles broke through the surface, wailing like a mad man. Instead of answering him, Laura lifted a leg out and kicked sidewise, sending him and, as he gripped Isaac's arm in the fall, Isaac in alongside Stiles.

"Is it safe? I mean, in their state?" Kira asked, still looking amused at the idiots flailing in the water.

"O' course," Laura grinned, leaning close to Kira. "A pirate who can't function while three sheets in t' wind ain't no pirate at all." True enough, the mates were laughing about, careless about anything that wasn't splashing the closest lad.

She'd been like that too, at one point. When her mom was still captain of _The Hellbound Curse_ , and her dad was still around to throw his kids overboard for laughs. It had always scandalized any witness who wasn't part of the crew, but Laura never understood why. Her parents had done a lot of things to a lot of people, and had risked plenty of things in the name of the sea, but their kids were never one of them. They were all agile, and competitive even more, so swimming and water battling was never anything but fun for them. They'd spend days at it sometimes.

"What's the other reason?"Kira asked then, startling her.

"What reason?" Laura parroted, looking to her left. Another auburn shadow had danced on the periphery of her vision, but once again, nothing remained. She was certain she hadn't drank all that much tonight, but whatever was causing these hallucinations was starting to drive her mad.

She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rising in alert.

"Earlier, you said..." Kira started, but slowed down. Laura stopped rubbing her eyes long enough to look over to her crewmate, who was staring at her, concerned. She looked at Kira pointedly until the girl continued. "You said there were two reasons why you accosted here."

"Aye." Laura acquiesced. "One is for Peter, o' course. T' other is for me men." At the younger girl's reaction, or lack thereof, she continued. "This place is o' t' more passin' that isn't actually on shore." Kira still looked confused, much to Laura's chagrin. She huffed loudly, exasperated. "What do ye think I want from ye, Kira?"

"Ummm…" Kira's eyes darted from side to side, as though the answer could be found nearby. Laura  sighed and stood up, ready for the conversation to end. They had a long trip tomorrow, and Laura was more than willing to go find her cot. Or, more likely, to go inspect the ship for the journey before the crew got on board.

"None of ye are bound to me. This travel be foolish, and while ye all are great seaman, I want ye all to have t' chance to leave if ye so desire." Laura nodded towards the shore. "Ships come and go here, day in n' day out, and if ye one day choose land or, Jones forbid, a sane journey, there will always be a drunk bastard in'ere to take ye there or take ye in. None of ye owe me anythin'."

"Perhaps." Kira said, mouth curving into a soft smile that Laura couldn't decipher. "This journey is pretty foolish indeed. But have you ever heard of a pirate that wasn't? I have not."

Laura was secretly pleased at the display of loyalty, but she knew better than to show it. Instead, she scowled at the horizon. "There's a first to everythin'."

With one last glare at the ocean's surface, still quiet and annoyingly undisturbed bar the boys splashing around, she turned on her heels and made her way to shore, more than ready to make sure that her ship was in condition to sail by dawn's first light and shrugging off the feeling of an unseen menace. She had enough to worry about, even without bringing paranoia into the mix.

****

In hindsight, Laura probably should have seen it coming. _Especially_ with the way circumstances have been decidedly in disaccord with Laura as of late and, by disaccord, she meant that there might as well have been a cannonball shot at her life with all the shit she'd faced so far. In fact, the last two days had gone rather well, all things considered, which really should have been her first clue.

"Argent sails, abaft t' beam!" Isaac belted out from the crow's nest, eyes out towards the open sea.  "A league out, me'd say!" Well _shit_.

"Maybe they ain't seen us yet." Laura mumbled under her breath as she tossed the barrel on the wooden edge and dumped its content into the sea below, not caring if anyone heard. She didn't waste a second before doing the same with the next one handed to her.

"Less than a league, Cap'n, comin' in!" Isaac bellowed, as though hearing her.

"Bloody hell." She hissed. Laura locked eyes with Cora who stared back, pupils wide. The problem wasn't merely that the assholes were Argents, and themselves Hales, though yes, that was going to be a problem as long as the sun did shine. However, on any other day, their ship would have by far outmatched any which one of the Argent fleet, and the problem would have been avoided entirely. Only, it clearly wasn't any other day, and the Argents were only the second biggest crisis they were facing at the moment.

Laura tossed another barrel's worth of sea water back into the ocean.

"How's me bilge!?" Laura knew at least one of her crew would know, and indeed, on cue, Malia crawled out of the hull.

"Still fillin' in, and fast, Cap'n." Malia didn't look up as she pulled a barrel out and handed it to the next mate in line. "Parrish's tryin' to patch it up, but he's doin' a rat's piss job so far."Laura nodded, letting her eyes sweep over Malia's attire which was soaked to the knees. Considering that only her boots had been wet a moment ago, Laura was inclined to believe her. She had to make a decision, and fast.

"Any one of ye can tell me what in Jones' gold happened to me ship?" Though she barely hissed the words, everyone seemed to have heard her loud and clear. Eyes darted from side to side, looking at each other accusingly from across the deck, and a few shuffled awkwardly, looking like they didn't want to disappoint but really having no idea what, exactly, had ripped through the sturdy wood.

"Nothin' seems to have damaged t' net, so it prob'ly ain't a reef, but if we took it out maybe-" Scott tried.

"Then do it quick!" Laura barked back, finally stepping away from her makeshift post. "Empty t' remainin' barrels and no more! Whichever o' ye isn't _knee-deep_ in work as o' now will help McCall haul in t' net!" She looked past the crew at the horizon in the direction Isaac had indicated, but the sun blanketing the waved made it difficult to see much of anything from her standing point. "That includes ye on sail duty! Drop it and bring in t' net."

"But Cap'n-" Erica slid down the mast, looking alarmed.

"But nothin'!" Laura cut her short, walking to the side closest to the incoming vessel. "Empty as much o' t' water as possible, bring up t' net, and then I want ye not o' known Hale alliance down below t' deck!" She caught Derek's eye, who looked worried. It was a startling look on his usually expressionless face. "We ain't outrunning them, not like this." She added more softly, hoping to appease his, and mostly her own, doubts.

"Ye playin' this _political_ , then?" Erica asked, eyebrows raised. Her expression was mimicked by most of the crew.

Laura pulled her shoulders back and raised her chin. "Aye, we are." She looked at her crew. "Savvy?"

"Aye! Aye!" Chorused as everyone hurriedly got to work.

By the time the Argents were more than a speck in the distance to Laura, the rest of the crew rushed to the trap door until only herself, her siblings, Malia, Boyd and Erica remained on the deck, with McCall climbing up the ropes to join Isaac in the nest.

She didn't like this, not one bit. Most of her crew was in the hull, that was, probably due to Laura's bad luck, filling in water as worrisome speeds while she could do little else than wait the Argents out, and it terrified her. If Parrish didn't manage to close up the leak, and soon at that, her men would have little choice but to either climb on deck, thereby exposing them, or remain under water, neither of which appealed to her. In both case they'd die, of course, whether from drowning or by the Argents' canon, and there wasn't anything Laura could do to change the odds.

It would solely depend on Parrish's abilities and on how talkative the Argents felt upon approach.

Of course, because Davy Jones' spirit seemed to be taking a piss on Laura's luck lately,  none other than Kate Argent, Daughter of Royal Navy Commander and Navy officer herself, never mind the fact that she was a landlubber and piss poor at anything that wasn't bratty tantrums, stepped into view.

Laura barely managed to hold back an eye roll and to swallowed her bile. They were _screwed_.

"Well, well, well. Look at what the tide has pulled in." Her disgustingly saccharine smile made Laura's stomach coil. "I'm fairly certain the closest brothel is in the other direction, deary."

"O' course ye would know." Laura spoke through grinding teeth. Boyd shot her a warning look.

"No need to be defensive, love. I'm simply looking out for you." Kate pouted innocently and raised her hand behind her, making a show out of unrolling the parchment placed in it and looking over whatever bullshit was on found there. "According to the court, your ship is not on the list of those guilty of piracy." And of course she'd look disappointed by it. "Now, I wonder how you could afford a ship such as this one, if not through pillage? After all, that's how your parents did it, isn't it?"

"We transport people from t' coast to t' isles for guineas." Derek jumped in, clearly knowing how little diplomacy Laura had in her. Almost as much as she had patience, that is. "We're a small crew, we require little else than t' sea."

"How adorable. I'm almost tempted to believe you." Her eyes lingered on Derek a tad too long for Laura's taste, and she was immediately reminded of why their feud wasn't solely seen as the professional type by their peers. The Argent's made it their mission to get under their skins, after all. "And where are your passengers now?"

Kate licked her lips at Derek, and even Laura could feel his discomfort from where she was standing.

"Just left. We headin' back to coast." Kate turned to her, and Laura dared the officer to call her on the obvious lie with a quirk of the eyebrow. Kate only smirked in response.

"Is that so? Because this is what I think." She leaned forward as her grin broadened, an uncomfortable glint in her eye. "I think that there was never any passengers, and that if I were to search this boat I'd find stolen gold and a rotten crew of known pirates. Like mother, like daughter. Am I wrong?"

" _I_ think ye've been spendin' a bit too much time in t' sun drinkin' sea water lately, and that unless ye can prove otherwise, ye have no right steppin' foot on me ship." Laura challenged. That seemed to wipe the smile straight of the Officer's face, and for a second Laura thought she'd blown it, that they'd take her ship anyway, if only because of her big, filter-less mouth. However, with little more than a glance backwards, Kate's grin was back, although clearly pained.

Laura followed Kate's gaze and noticed a man looking over the encounter attentively. It seemed like Kate had been reckless one too many times, enough for _The Burning Deceit_ 's action to require supervision, and Laura felt  the knot she hadn't realized was forming behind her breast bone giving way to hope. If he could keep Kate in check, than she could keep herself. Hopefully.

"It sounds like a nice story, it really does. But with your history, I can't find it in myself to believe you." Kate crooned, voice light.

"And I can't find it in meself to _care_." Laura chanted back, her tone taking a melodious sound as she refused to move her gaze from Kate's. Kate glared back, remaining silent.

Their little stare-down seemed soundless and interminable. All Laura could think about was her crew, down below, probably taking their last breath. What she needed was for Kate to take a hold of her superiority complex and leave _now_ , but as though she knew it, Kate seemed unwilling to move a muscle.

Instead, the other woman stayed put, looking Laura down as though she were a barnacle on the side of Kate's fancy, daddy-given vessel. Only, not quite, since while Kate would probably never lower herself to ridding her boat of its filth herself, it seemed like she'd kill anyone who tried to take the joy of ending Laura away from her. Even angry, that damn grin never wavered.

 _Just leave already_ , Laura kept thinking.

The man cleared his throat from his place on the opposite deck, and finally, _finally_ , Kate took a step back.

"You should probably have your ship looked at." Kate said, looking down at her. "It seems to be sailing a little low. Awash, if I dare say. You wouldn't want passengers travelling under bad conditions, would you?" With another disdainful smirk, she stepped away from the edge and out from sight.

For the unending moments it took for the ship to pull away, like it always takes after something that size has managed to immobilize itself, Laura fought the urge to run to the trap and look at what was left in it. Kate had been right: the ship _was_ going awash and Laura was afraid of what that meant.

She couldn't hold it in much longer than it took for the crew on the Argent ship to shrink to the size of ants, and then disappear. The moment Isaac nodded his accord that the Argent's were too far to be seen, and thus to see, Laura and Malia were pulling at the wooden doors and watching them fall open with a bang.

They didn't wait long, thankfully. The first ones, Melissa, Deaton and the few others that were on board more for intellectual support than handwork came out dry, and Laura sighed in relief at the thought that the water hadn't reached the quarters. Melissa, seeing her sag, shook her head minutely.

"Don't celebrate now. The rest of the crew went down under to help out anyway they could, and I'm not sure how much water there is by now." She kept her voice gentle, but it didn't ease Laura's concerns one bit.

Suddenly, a grinning Stiles scrambled out of the hole after them. "T' hole it fixed!" He crowed, pumping his fist, his hips wiggling awkwardly in what was probably his definition of a celebratory dance. She didn't feel all that excited herself, though, especially as she glanced at his clothes. They were wet all the way to the shoulders.

It had been too close a call. _Way_ too close.

"What happened to me ship?" She swallowed hard and asked instead, not wanting to dwell on what could have taken place inside her own boat. Her men were pushing each other out of the way as they raced to the surface, but none of them seemed inclined to answer her.

"I'm not sure…" Scott said from behind her. As she turned around, she spotted him standing with the net in his hand. "But, umm, ye might want to see this."

She didn't hesitate for a second before striding forward and coming in next to him. With a hesitant intake of air, he held his hand out to her.

"What is this?" She asked, frowning at the coin-sized speck in his hand. She picked it up and flipped it over. It was no thicker than a coin too.

"No clue. Looks like a fish scale, only… prettier." And it was, that was certain. It seemed to change from jade to violet, passing through brilliant shades of blue as Laura tilted it from side to side. "T'was stuck between t' metal bindings put in t' net, though."

"A big fish?" Erica asked, unconvinced.

"Nah. Fish don't sink ships." Derek frowned, coming closer. In fact, the whole crew had gathered around to look.

"There are stories from where I come from." Kira said, though she didn't look anymore certain than the rest. "About reptiles. Alligators I think. Great lizards that swim south of the continent, with big teeth and bigger claws."

"That would explain t' leak." Parrish shrugged, wiping water from his brow. "T' hole was a bloody straight line. Cut right through, and not in a jiggery way like a rock might've. I wouldn't o' done a better job with me sword."

"And do yer reptiles look like this?" Laura asked even though she knew the answer. That would make for some fancy looking lizards, alright. The kind more sailors would be bragging about, if they actually existed. She was certain she'd heard of what Kira was talking about, alligators or what the hell they were, and she was convinced they couldn't be found anywhere near here anyway.

She looked past Kira to Deaton, hoping he'd know more, but the man was strangely quiet. All in all it wasn't that abnormal for him, since the man practically cultivated mystery, but what was intriguing was the fact that he was staring at Laura and not the scale, as though waiting for _her_ to figure it out. Which, what?

Though, truth be told,  Laura was being more than a little hypocritical, since the reality of what was going on was starting to become clear to her as well. That, or she was finally going out of her mind.

"I… don't think so." Kira shrugged, biting her lip. Laura sighed angrily.

This was ridiculous. Mostly, though, it was simply not happening. It couldn't be, not outside of stories anyway, and yet.

Yet.

She had an inkling of what it could be, of course, having sailed all her life. Everyone had heard the stories at one point or another, and the words _beautiful_ and _fish_ only came together in so many tales. Still, if she was wrong, she was going to start a mutiny herself. There is just so much credibility you can have while hailing a myth.

Swallowing the rest of her pride, she marched to the edge of the ship and stared at the gentle waves lapping at the hull.

Time to find out.

"Alright, ye bloody wench, come up!" Laura shouted into the empty space. She was met only with silence, to her annoyance, and with equally alarmed and puzzled looks from her mates. That is, until Stiles caught on.

"No pissin' way!" He exclaimed and stumbled to the edge, steering his head back and forth in the hopes of seeing something in the water.

"Ye can't be serious." Isaac deadpanned, unimpressed. Laura shouldered on, having nothing to lose anymore, now that her dignity had already jumped ship.

"Come out now! Don't be _scared_ now, beauty!" Laura taunted and shrugged Cora's hand off her shoulder, not willing to tear her eyes away from the ripples underneath to look at what was probably a pack of pitying faces.

Unexpectedly, the sea foam parted to a crown of soft, rust-colored strands that slowly broke through the sun's reflection, followed by eyes with dept greater than Davy Jones locker and greener that any sea or land Laura had ever seen. They were reared by a pair of pouty lips, curved into an piquant, if somewhat intimidating, smirk.

If she were to be honest, Laura didn't expect the goad to work so well. Not that she would ever admit that out loud, of course.

"From where I'm swimming, I'm not the one who should be scared." Came a harmonious voice, and Laura took a step before she'd even realized it, as through pulled forward by the sound alone. Judging by the way the whole crew was pressing close to see, she wasn't the only one. That, or the sight of an actual, flesh and blood _mermaid_ was a captivating one. Go figure.

"Is that so?" Laura replied, unable to look away from the pale skin that gleamed as brightly as the water around it. She barely heard the astonished cries of the men around her. "And we should be, be it?"

"Hmmm." The girl batted her lashes, biting at a slender thumb coyly. "I'm not the one who'll die if I sink. Or when, if we're being accurate."

Laura's blood ran cold. She'd been a little too carried away by the sight of a mermaid and not focused enough on the issue at hand. That is, the reason why they'd even realized the girl (woman? thing?) was tailing them. She pushed herself away from the railing on which she'd unconsciously leaned and stood straight, letting her demeanor harden.

"Nah. Ye just t' one who failed to sink us."

The mermaid's brows arched in response. "Should I try again, then?" Her voice, still musical, had dropped to a much lower octave, making Laura realize the mermaid was probably more dangerous than it was safe to taunt. She'd tried to kill them, after all, and looked like she was going to go at it again at any moment now.

Laura had to learn to control her tongue, she really did.

"Depends." Laura shrugged, trying and failing to appear nonchalant. "On what charge?"

The girl giggled, of all things.

"Word got around that you were after something _I_ consider mine." The girl brushed a strand of hair back, leaving her face exposed. "And I'm not a fan of that."

It took a second to sink in, but it became clear to Laura that she was talking about the treasure, even without Stiles whispering it under his breath, if solely because of all the tales of gold hoarding maidens Laura had had the pleasure to hear about throughout her lifetime. She had to hold back the urge to curse, if only because Cora didn't bother to and _someone_ had to stay level headed. Might as well be the captain.

"Are ye? Or ye just scared o' a little competition?" She could feel a wide hand pushing on her lower back, probably Derek's, and she resisted the urge to step down. The goading was what had made the mermaid expose herself just now, and Laura was hoping it would be enough to prevent her from killing them all later.

"You? Competition?" The girl threw her head back, but her laugh was forced and her eyes looked like they were about to grow teeth and claws of their own and attack Laura themselves with the amount of anger they projected at her.

Laura smiled, knowing she had the girl right where she wanted.

"Why, beauty, why else would ye kill us if not 'cause ye fear we'll take it from ye?" She sneered.

"Like you even stand a chance." The mermaid sang. She wasn't sure if it was an illusion from the sun's beams or not, but Laura would have sworn that what used to be straight, white teeth was now starting to look alarmingly like fangs.

"Prove it then." She leaned slightly overboard. "See if ye stand a chance against me crew." Laura proposed.

Somehow, the encounter felt completely opposite to the one with Kate. With the Argent's, the atmosphere was brittle and cold, like a dried out sprout ready to snap. It brought the taste of bile to Laura's tongue and landed her hand on her sword, ready for a fight. When she came across an Argent, she wanted nothing more than to watch them disappear.

This, though, this was making her blood run, her heartbeat race. It felt like a battle on an even ground, not frustrating, not annoying, but purposeful and _engaging_. It was like a game of chess, where she was anticipating the opponent's moves instead of despising them. With the Argents, she wanted to fight to kill. With the girl, she wanted to fight if only to watch the other fight back.

Maybe it was part of a mermaid's charm. Or, most likely, it was probably because Laura hadn't despised her for nearly as long as she had the Argents.

The mermaid for her part looked amused by the suggestion, which wound up Laura as much as it pulled her in.

"It's cute that you think so lowly of me. Or so highly of yourself, whichever it is. That being said, if you think pride will stop me from killing you all, you're wrong." Lydia dragged her eyes away from Laura's, looking down everyone that met her gaze. "I am not some stupid creature to be played, oh captain, nor do I like to be perceived as such."

Laura didn't know what to answer to that. On one hand, she could deny the allegations entirely, but what good would that do aside from most definitely angering the girl more than she already was? She wasn't naïve, at least in so far as she could be believed.  On the other hand, plowing forward with her original con seemed like a particularly bad idea now. In either case, she was likely to end up at the bottom of the ocean.

Luckily, the mermaid didn't seem to be waiting for an answer.

"I'll bite though, since the idea of you losing seems particularly entertaining." She smiled, eyes wide and innocent, even now that Laura knew better. "Death does seem like too quick a defeat for you, don't you think?"

The words were getting under her skin. It shouldn't have felt like a challenge, a sport to which they were partaking, in which the stakes were her crew and the memory of her parents. She was gambling too much on this, and yet.

And yet, those were exactly the odds everyone on that deck had signed to when they'd joined the expedition. They had already pawned away their lives in exchange for the search of the Hale treasure, and this, this was just the concretization of the conditions.

Laura had spent the better half of her years as captain looking for that booty, and she wasn't going to stand by while the creature who probably _already_ amassed it was telling her she wasn't good enough for it.

"Aye, and ye'll wish ye'd have killed us when ye had t' chance." Laura would make sure of it.

She felt a sharp pain on the back of her thigh where someone had pinched her hard enough for her to break composure, probably to get her to shut up. The point was for her to get them all out alive, which was what she had gone for at first. Only, she rubbed her thigh with a wince but didn't acknowledge those around her. It stopped being about them somewhere along the way.

Now, it was about getting the treasure, hell or high water.

"Actually, I think _you_ 'll wish I had. A swift demise is often a painless one, after all. And there are far worse things than death, I'll have you know." At Laura's unmoved expression, the mermaid shrugged empathically, bringing the tops of her seemingly bare breast above the water line. "Quit now." She ordered, albeit flippantly.

"Ne'er." Laura growled.

The girl seemed unsurprised and, if anything, glad of Laura's response. With a look Laura couldn't quite decipher, the girl's grin disappeared below the water's surface and, between a wave and the next, she'd vanished entirely.

Almost immediately, gasps and shouts rose from the crowds around Laura, leaving her to trace the ghost of the creature's presence with her eyes and steel herself against what would probably be, and _should_ be, a ship full of accusations. She'd endangered them back there, with nothing to support her actions other than what her gut had been telling her, and for that there was no excuse. Mind the fact that they were still alive, Laura had a feeling that their still beating hearts wasn't all that much of a promise of good fortune.

She couldn't know, of course, having never crossed a mermaid, but she was certain that nothing good could come from it.

****

That, of course, was the goddamn understatement of the century: six dead fish snuck under the ridges of the outside deck, stinking up the place as if Peter's hardest-working girl was hiding beneath the planks and thus causing more than its fair share of organic projectiles, two blocked scuppers and thus a few filthy water floods and consequent rotting wood inside the ship, and a missing escutcheon plate, essentially stripping the ship of its name and identity, along with a few other tamer attacks later, and Laura was about to lose it.

Or rather, she had already lost it a while back, and she knew exactly when.

They'd been anchored near one of the lesser known rock formations near the Broken Cape, trying to repair the netting the mermaid had shredded again, because _of course_ she would. They were down to the last of their spare rope, couldn't afford another hole, and Laura, exhausted, was hoping for a miracle or, at least, for the mermaid to find wrecking their net less amusing than it was the first _eight times_.

Which is when Isaac, panicked, called for a change of direction. It didn't make sense, of course, since they were anchored and thus not moving.

Only, they were, and heading straight for the formation at that.

The steering away from the rocks hadn't been the worst part, however. No, the worst was bringing up the anchor only to find that there was none, hence their drifting, and that their rope had been cut just below the water's surface. The red-haired shrew had cut off their anchor.

She had _cut_ off their _anchor_. Their _anchor_ laid somewhere at the bottom of the fucking _ocean_.

Laura craved blood. She'd managed to completely discharge her pistols at the motionless sea surrounding them, continuing her attack with three cannonballs before Boyd and Derek finally managed to pull her away from the canons, thrashing and screaming like a lunatic.

Not that her reaction had been disproportionate, of course. Because of all the things on the ship, the anchor was pretty fucking significant one.

Still, when the ship started to sink that evening, a new hole ripped in the hull, there was no question as to why. _You try to kill me again and I'll kill you_ , it practically shouted.

After all, according to their unspoken agreement, it had been Laura who'd taken it too far, anchor be damned.

It didn't help that whenever Laura caught herself looking out, regardless of whether she was helping Stilinski with a sail or showing Kira the ropes, or just talking logistics with Deaton and Melissa, she always seemed to catch a pair of green eyes staring at her, judging her silently. It triggered goose bumps on her arms and neck and strung her tight with self-doubt, as if she was suppose to make a good impression without knowing why.

A few weeks in, and Laura was tired, stressed and going slightly crazy. Her only compensation was knowing that if the mermaid was still after them, it had to be because they were close to the treasure, right?

Right?

At the very least, by the time Laura finally had to admit that they needed a break to get their ship back into shape, she was fairly certain they had an idea of a _possibility_ of where the ship's remains probably hid, even though they had no way of reaching it. While the vessel and crew had no problem sailing back the few days' trip to the isle where Peter's brothel obnoxiously stood, with a surprising, yet suspicious, absence from the sea witch, Laura wasn't convinced the hull could take another attack without reinforcement from a blacksmith or carpenter, even with Parish doing his best to handle the damage. In any case, Laura wasn't tempted to push her luck.

She had expected the departure of some of her seaman upon arrival, of course, especially with the way the trip had been going as of late. Still, while she was disappointed to watch Matt, Caitlyn and Heather sign on with other captains, she was surprised of how many chose to stay.

Obviously, those who didn't stray still seemed to enjoy the break from sea an alarming amount, which all things considered wasn't unwarranted, so Laura let them enjoy themselves for the while.

What she _hadn't_ expected was for Peter to have gossip that was worthwhile.

"T' Argents? Are ye sure?" Laura pressed, knowing Peter enjoyed the attention too much but needing to know regardless. The man practically preened as he washed the glass in his hand, trying to play it nonchalant.

"That's what I heard. But a mermaid? If t' Argent shrew wanted attention so bad, she could've just taken off her blouse. Prob'bly would have had more people interess'd than gettin' her mates to brag about catchin' somethin' that doesn't exist." Peter snorted. "Hair t' color of lastin' sunset and tail all shades of the deep' blue, they say. Pathetic really. Pathetic and hilarious."

Only no.

No. It wasn't.

"Okay." Even though it was the furthest thing from okay. Because now possibly the only being who knew where her parent's treasure lay was apparently being held captive and tortured. Most importantly, she was being taken away from Laura's reach, along with any information she may have.

"Okay." Laura breathed, even though she barely heard it. It wasn't just that she didn't have a mermaid to guide her anymore. It was that the people she despised the most had their hands on said mermaid, and so might already have torn the information out of the girl's lovely little mouth. Not only would she lose her parent's treasure, but she'd lose it to the _Argents_.

She wouldn't let it happen though. It was _her_ treasure, and it was _her_ mermaid.

"Okay." Laura forced out, shaking her head. Peter's eyebrows were high upon his forehead, looking like he had no idea why he even deemed her worthy of talking to in the first place. "And ye said they're anchored on _this_ isle?"

"Aye. Or at least they were. On t' other side, where t' commerce are. T' ship was anchored straight on t' dock. Since they still have _their_ anchor. "He glared at her then, and Laura couldn't help but wonder what Malia had told him to explain _that_. "They always bring it way close when they come in to scare off potential no-gooders. Which makes their story 'bout mermaids even less likely." He rolled his eyes. "Who'd leave such a haul so vulnerable in a place like 'is?"

An Argent nutcase with an immeasurable ego and delusions of being untouchable, that's who.

"Aye, thanks." Laura nodded at Peter as if in afterthought, looking through the crowd. She needed a plan.

Mostly, she needed to find her brother.

 

"Ye did _not_ just trade Derek for t' Sea Witch." Cora forced out and Laura winced because yeah, said like that, it did sound pretty bad. Especially since it was mostly true. "She wrecked t' wood! Stunk it putrid! She tried to kill us! Have you forgotten 'bout that?"

"Shhhh!" Laura hissed, pressing her back to some stranger's boat and peering around it. She didn't see any guards. "Ye know we could use her in our search."

"And not Derek?!" Laura winced again.

"Derek's a big lad, he can fend for himself." Laura glared at her sister before looking over at the other ship again. There was still no movement around or onboard it, and Laura couldn't believe how foolish the Argent's had been let the boat completely defenseless. "And stop sayin' that like I gave him 'way. It's a loan at most, nothin' more." And _wow_ , that sounded horrible.

Judging by the humorless laugh Cora let slip, it seemed she agreed.

"Kate's goin' to _eat_ him." Cora whined.

"I know." Laura consented. She grabbed her end of the bag and pulled it up as they ran up to a further ship, one closer to their own and the small wood between both docks, pressing in close and freezing for a second. When no shouts of anger arose, she relaxed and looked around.

"I want to stress again how ye sent t' son o' a renowned pirate family in a bar filled with corsairs." Cora spat the word, looking at the building in question in disgust. Laura fought off the shiver that ran up her spine at that.

"Ye can't kill someone for a relative's fault anymore." The new king was harsher than the last one, demanding more taxes and stricter sentences from his people, but at least he wasn't fond of death and gallows. "Anyhow, Kate wouldn't let anythin' happen. The whore likes Derek too much."

"Yuck. Ye say that like it's reassurin'." Laura could see Cora's arms trembling slightly, and she wasn't sure if it was because of her arms giving out or from movement inside the bag. She didn't know which one she preferred.

A whistle sounded through the silence, followed by two others, and the sisters hoisted the bag higher between them and ran towards the source, barely sparing a look around. The trees offered little cover as they entered the wooded area, but it was still better than the bare dock they watched disappear behind them.

"Ye have it?" Boyd's voice sounded in the darkness before he actually came into view. She could see a small row boat behind him through the trees, drifting quietly on the black water, with who she assumed was Scott and Isaac sitting in it though the lack of light made it impossible to determine.

"Aye. Kate was t' only one standin' guard. She's with Derek in t' Beacon now, probably makin' a fool o' herself." At least Laura hoped. She'd hate for Derek to fall for Kate's malice, though not nearly as much as she'd loath for him to get hurt or traumatized by it, which was more likely to happen. Self-hatred threatened to boil over past her throat, even knowing that Derek had volunteered to do it.

Laura was the captain. He was her responsibility.

"Aye, Cap'n." Boyd came closer and grabbed the end nearest to Cora. The three of them shuffled awkwardly down the slope and into the water, making walking that much more difficult. On more than one occasion, Laura nearly stumbled and lost grip, and her arms were starting to get seriously sore.

This might not have been her worst idea to date, but it hadn't been her most pleasant one either.

Two pairs of arms reached out when they got close enough and pulled the bag into the boat. Everyone stilled, and for a second Laura would have sworn she heard a huff coming from the bag, but then the silence stretched on and she deemed it safe.

"T' workers?" Laura asked, shaking her arms. Cora was already stalking towards shore, grumbling under her breath about her soaked pants and stupid decisions. Boyd looked after her for a second before turning to Laura.

"Done. T' wood wasn't changed, but they added more reinforcement in t' hull. T' ships heavier, but sturdier too." So less speed, more strength. Laura frowned a little at that, since the vessel's speed was one of the things she liked most about her ship. She'd have to wait until later to have the ship restored to its original state, when she'd have the time. "We rowed 'em to shore and came 'ere right after. Oi! And we've an anchor now."

"Aye. Row back to t' boat and assist Melissa anyway she needs. Keep it on t' low, savvy?" Laura couldn't stress the last point enough. She didn't need more than a handful of her crew knowing about this.

"Aye! Aye!"They grunted and Boyd pulled himself aboard before rowing away with what was probably going to turn around and bite her in the ass.

She stayed knee deep in the water until the darkness consumed them completely.

 

"T' verdict?" Laura asked, shuffling from foot to foot. Her thoughts were in part with Derek who was still with Kate, had to be, until the whole crew was back onboard and ready to disappear, and in part with what lay behind her chamber door. Melissa looked exhausted, but it didn't tell anything Laura needed to know.

"Part of the gossip was true, I fear. There's a few injuries, some more critical than others, but what worries me most was how dried out the poor thing was. Deaton and Morrell are looking through their lore as we speak to see if there'll be any lasting consequences, but for now there's no way to know." Melissa shrugged.

"And- Well, can I…?" Laura stammered. Melissa was maybe part of her crew, but she was also like a mother to Laura, and she didn't want to upset her.

Melissa frowned slightly.

"She's unconscious, so she can't answer anything. If you want to stay with me while I make sure she stays hydrated and change her bandages, though, you're more than welcome to."

"I can do it." Laura hurried to offer, though she  had no idea as to why. "Ye haven't had t' chance to relax since we arrived. Go drink, or sleep. Whichever." She pressed.

Melissa stayed silent for a second, assessing Laura as though she was worried she'd do something horrible. Which, rude. Laura was only offering to help. Still, when Melissa finally stepped away from the door, Laura felt her shoulders sag in relief and chest puff in pride, as though she'd passed a test of character.

"Sleep does sound great. Do you know how to do it?" Melissa said, barely stifling a yawn.

"Unless it's different from human injuries and keepin' a beached whale damp, I should be good." Laura rolled her eyes.

Melissa cuffed the back of her neck affectionately and sighed. "Alright then, I'll let you to it." She yawned again as she walked away.

Laura expected the seriousness of the situation to finally sink in and paralyze her, or something foolish of the sort. As it was, it wasn't even enough to make her pause. She felt curiosity sizzle in her limbs and adrenaline shoot through her as she approached the door, hand on the knob before Melissa was even out of sight. She felt anxious to be left alone with her personal little curse of fate, even though she had no idea why. Like Melissa had said, the girl wouldn't be more than a corpse for a little while at least.

She pushed the door open and closed it immediately after her, eyes glued ahead.

Her cot had been pushed completely to one side and her work table to the other, with the maps and books that had been left out brushed under the bed and desk. In the middle of them, one of the ship's row boats had been filled with water and balanced by beams that pressed on the walls on either side of the room. Laura wasn't sure how she was meant to sleep, since the beam passed directly over her sheets, but Laura didn't spare it another thought as she stepped over one of the planks to come in closer to the boat.

The room was pretty dark, being lit by a single candle that cast dancing shadows across the space, and so it took Laura a second to realize what she was seeing.

The girl had already been hidden by the bag Cora and Laura had ended up stealing her in when they'd found her in the Argent ship, so Laura had had no way to anticipate it, but she was shocked to recognize the traits of the mermaid's face, looking albeit drastically different from the last time she'd seen it. Dark circles had formed under her eyes, but they paled in comparison to the blackened veins spreading from her eyes and mouth. Even her lips, which Laura couldn't help but look at now, were black and cracked and contrasted heavily with the rest of the remaining skin, which had once appeared a bright milky white but now looked horribly like ash.

Laura had no idea if all of that was the result of having been kept out of water or more, since she'd heard of poisons and plants that did similar things, but she didn't really care. She was going to make Kate pay, one way or another.

Really, it was impressive the number of ways Laura could think of to kill the Lady, albeit a little worrisome too.

It wasn't until she had gone through two sets of bandages and been visited by Derek, who assured her he was fine (if a bit creeped out) and refused to leave her alone (because clearly he was a much more caring sibling than she was, considering she'd sent him directly to Kate while he wouldn't even leave her with an unconscious fish. And _no_ , it had nothing to do with captains being required to make difficult decisions for the greater good, _Derek_ , stop trying to make it sound better than it is) that she realized how absurd it was for her to be this angry about the situation.

The mermaid was weaker, defenseless and more likely to confess. Laura should be glad. She shouldn't give a rat's ass about Kate's behavior.

Only, she did. She was seething with fury, enough so that her emotions didn't let her sleep much. She was awake as they left the dock, and pretty much throughout all the following days of travelling. What she did sleep was restless and short-lived, and she always felt guilty for leaving the girl unattended upon waking.

If that was what dehydration looked like for a mermaid, Laura didn't think she could live with the guilt of being the one who caused it. If anything, that told her everything she needed to know about Kate.

Though, if she was honest with herself, she couldn't blame her lack of sleep on the girl, considering the way Laura constantly brushed off Melissa's offers to take over. She found that she liked filling in her new found time, both from her shorter nights and from Derek and Cora taking over the crew who was, for the most part, unaware of what lay a door away, in taking care of the girl.

 

Dipping the cloth back into the water, she couldn't help her eyes from dropping to the girl's tail.

It was far too long for the boat and, consequently, Laura had to drape wet articles of clothing over it constantly in an effort to keep it moist, but every so often  it would flicker, quickly but briefly, and Laura would have to place them all back again. She never let it uncovered for long, though the enclosed air had long since become humid from the presence of water and their combined heat, but when she had to drench the sheets or put them back in place, she always allowed herself a minute to guiltily look it over before pretending she had never let it happen

Like the rest of the girl, it was already starting to look radically better after a few days' care. The scales were looking shinier by the hour, especially compared to the dull and colorless quality they had to them when she'd first looked under the clothes. Those that had turned white were for the most part blooming into emeralds and lavenders, with only a handful of them stubbornly refusing to change back. According to Deaton, they'd probably fall off eventually.

Laura wiped a drop of sweat from her collarbone and fought the urge to reach out and touch the tail, to see if it was warm like skin or cool like metal, and whether it felt soft or rigid under the palm of her hand. Enough of her curiosity was quenched as it was, since the sight of the tail alone was enough to take her breath away. She hadn't seen it before the incident, didn't know what it looked like with undamaged fins, though it was getting there rapidly, but she had a hard time believing it could get any better than that.

She felt slightly less shameful when the tail was covered again and her eyes were meeting skin instead, and she had no idea why. Maybe it was due to the fact that the girl had never shown Laura her tail, but had never seemed shy about the nakedness of her body. Not that she had any reason to be, of course.

The scales met skin underwater at a waist small enough to seem disproportionate to the length of her tail, yet seemed to fit the height of her torso. Laura tried not to look, or at least faked to try, but as the girl's hair floated across the surface of the makeshift bath, she often caught glances of pale, round mounds and rosy nipples and those, those were harder to resist caressing than the tail ever would be.

Laura was screwed.

She could pretend all she wanted that she was glancing at the soft expense of white flesh for innocent reasons, that she was looking at how the black veins and man-made incisions had practically vanished, leaving behind only a skin slightly too pasty to be natural, but she was completely and utterly _weak_. However she tried to justify it, the truth remained that she couldn't ignore the call of the two beauty marks near the girl's hip, nor that of the light, nearly invisible freckles above her breasts that flickered in and out of sight under the surface of the water like constellations.

The mermaid was almost less frustrating to Laura when she was trying to destroy Laura's ship than she was now.

"Like what you see?" A soft giggle resonated through the air, making Laura startle hard enough to drop her cloth back in the water. She snapped upwards to the girl's face, which was tilted her way, eye hooded. It didn't look seductive though, but more like exhausted.

And, okay, a little seductive.

Laura tore her gaze away and dug into the basin, pulling out the cloth and going back to what she should have been doing, patting the mermaid's arm softly with the damp tissue. Only, the arm turned and a delicate hand grabbed her forearm.

"What?" She asked gruffly, trying to pull away from the girl's grasp, though barely. If she'd wanted, Laura could easily have stepped away, and clearly the girl's weak hold would have been useless in stopping her.

"I asked you if you wanted to touch." The girl batted her lashes, looking completely mellow and relax, like a kitten waking up in a patch of sun.

"Nah ye didn't." Laura swallowed hard, and the girl's eyes flicked down to follow the movement. Laura froze.

"I am now." She smirked.

"Well-" Laura back away from the basin, needing a minute and space to figure out what the hell was going on. She crossed her arms across her chest, easily dislodging the girl's hand, and watched the girl's eyes follow them. Even with the humidity and heat packed in the room, her eyes sent shivers up and down Laura's body, making her hyper-aware of the fact that she'd lost her blouse long ago and remained in nothing but a sleeveless undershirt. "I'm askin' where me goddamn treasure be!" She finally growled.

The girl shrugged lazily.

"Wherever it's been lost, I'd assume. I was following you hoping you'd know." She slurred, though she looked much more awake than she did before."You had ways and ideas about how to get to it when I first found you." The words were mocking and blasé, but there was apprehension in her eyes, like she was worried about the reaction her words would earn.

With reason too. Because, what? That didn't make any sense!

"Ye were followin' us? We were followin' ye!" Laura crowed, jaw dropping. She was met with only silence though. "So we weren't close to t' booty? We've been trailin' ye for nothin'…" Laura whispered the last part, horrified.

"My, me who thought you were after me for my great company." The mermaid sneered, raising a hand and looking at it, thereby ignoring Laura. Laura's anger intensified.

"Shut it or I'll throw ye in t' urinal water. I'm certainly in t' mood for it. Jones' gold, I thought mermaids were instinctively attracted to treasures!" Laura threw the cloth in the boat with a splash, making the mermaid flinch, but she refused to feel bad. "Why'd ye have to be dysfunctional!"

The girl glared furiously in return.

"Please, no mermaid can do that." She hissed angrily, and even then it sounded like music. "Simply because we hoard treasures doesn't mean there's any magic quality involved."

"Then why do it?" Laura was still pissed, royally so, but she needed to focus on something to stop herself from lashing out at one of her books or something.

The mermaid hesitated, as though that, of all things, was something private. As far as Laura knew, it might actually be. Maybe mermaid's weren't suppose to talk about their nature. Maybe they weren't allowed to even. "Your money has the same worth in our world as in yours." She eventually stated. "Only, we don't exchange it for goods, we collect it. The greater a mermaid's stash, the higher her standing." She shrugged, though it looked forced, and Laura couldn't help but scoff.

"A social hierarchy thin', huh?" Laura rolled her eyes.

"Isn't it the same in your world?" The girl replied unabashed, which, touché. Laura didn't know why she was even surprised the girl would have killed them over something like that. Isn't that mostly what everyone kills for in her own world as well?

"Then where did t' tales come from?" Laura asked, having to reluctantly concede that the girl's word, though they were stabbing her repeatedly, made sense.

"Like all gossip. People saw mermaids with treasures, and then the observations were gradually deformed from person to person. You'd know how it is, wouldn't you?" She asked, though it didn't sound like a question at all, and Laura knew exactly what the mermaid was referring to. Everyone had heard the stories about the kind of pirates her parents had been, and it seemed the ocean had heard as well. They were called ruthless, and terrifying, and monsters, always on the lookout for money and blood. Only, the truth was that they had rarely killed unless necessary. They treated their crew like family, they helped those threatened by the increasingly severe and dehumanizing laws of the new king, even (or especially) as they were enforced by the Argents, and they were loving parents.  

The truth in all of it was that they'd been fierce pirates, still, but fair ones at that.

"Aye." Laura whispered, and she could have sworn she saw the girls mouth soften.

"Though there's rarely smoke without fire, or so I'm told." The girl broke the silence first, grinning at her own joke. "You'll probably understand better why some mermaids choose to drown the poor seaman standing guard to the boat and sink its contents." She shook her head fondly, but otherwise seemed to see nothing wrong with that method. Laura couldn't help but raise a brow, unimpressed, but the girl ignored her in favor of pondering.  "However, I'm afraid I might fall victim to the more exaggerated side of men's tales myself. I heard so much about the Hales, but what if their treasure is not as bountiful as the legend says?"

That. That would not be a problem. Laura knew of that for certain, but held back from commenting to focus on the situation at hand. The treasure was her family's, and thus hers, not the mermaid's.

"Don't worry yer pretty head 'bout that." Laura smirked. "Worry instead 'bout whether or not ye'll live 'til sundown." She mocked. She was met with only a self-assured grin in return.

"You don't think that." The mermaid snorted, and raised a hand out of the water. Slowly, as though not wanting to scare a wild animal, she brought it down next to the boat, right where Laura was seated in the lone chair in the room, and ran a nail lazily down the leather of Laura's pants.

"What're ye doin'?" Here we go again. What was the mermaid playing at?

Laura didn't stop her though.

"You know," The girl started, pulling herself higher before turning on her side, half draped over the side of the boat, forcing Laura to physically stop her eyes from moving away from the girl's hand in fear of seeing what the mermaid was so blatantly offering. It made her scowl at the hand harder. "Aside from the established hierarchy, mermaids are not community-oriented creatures. We're often alone. So alone." Her voice broke, the melody of it became overly dramatic, and before she could stop herself, Laura was staring in her eyes, unable to look away. "It can get quite lonely." The girl's lip wobbled.

It freaking wobbled, and Laura knew it was a play, she fucking knew okay, but she couldn't help but gulp, couldn't pull away even as the mermaid's frown turned into a predatory smirk.

It was so obviously a play, but it was bloody working.

"I see the way you take care of your crew, been watching you since before you know." Even then, her eyes spoke nothing but truth. "Your engagement, your _passion_. You'd make for great company, wouldn't you?" The girl licked her lips, eyes darting across Laura's face.

She knew she shouldn't, god. She knew, but Laura fell for it anyway.

The kiss isn't tender in the way the mermaid's finger on her thigh is, but neither are the two of them, so it's to be expected. The mermaid couldn't have made her consent anymore obvious and Laura wasn't dense, nor was she as strong-minded as she often wished she was. She rocked forward, sliding her fingers into that wet, tangled mass of sunset rays, pulling the girl forward until she could feel the mermaid's breath in her lungs, her heart beating through Laura's palm as it pressed on the jugular.

The mermaid wasn't giving anything less either and nipped down on Laura's tongue before caressing it better with her own. Her hands were firmly on Laura's shoulders, holding herself up, which gave Laura free range to use her hands as she saw fit.

She slid her hands down the girls back, letting her nails drag behind like a set of claws playing with a prey. She knew, on some level of sub consciousness, that she wasn't breaking skin, but the idea of marking that moonlight colored skin as hers made her press the mermaid firmly to her body as her hand finally reached the girls' waist, growling into the kiss. The mermaid giggled in response, pushing herself with equal force into Laura's space, fingers digging into her shoulders.

Laura's hand slid lower on impulse and she stilled.

The scales were a few degrees cooler than the rest of the girl's body but just as soft, smooth like satin and textured like lace. For a second, she almost pulled away as she felt the girl freeze in her hands, but then a quiet noise that could easily be mistaken for a moan escaped her lips and Laura chased it down with her mouth.

She stroked as much of the tail as she could reach, hand grazing one of the colorful fins that laid in her path, and there was no mistaking the sound then. A breathy groan caressed the inside of her cheeks and a shudder ran through the body in her hands.

The girl let go of one of Laura's shoulder to grabbed onto her hand, helping it glide down to lower, smaller fins. In doing so, most of her weight sagged and Laura found herself being tugged forward, leaning over the basin, which the mermaid used to her advantage. She brought the other hand down to Laura's collar instead and pulled, bring Laura into her space rather than the other way around.

One moment, Laura was seeing nothing but the color of pale skin and the black of her own eyelids, but the next she caught sight of water just a few centimeters of where her face was heading, and pulled back with a start, dropping the girl back in the water and watched the water ripple and spill over the edge.

The mermaid looked believably alarmed and confused, but Laura didn't know what to think. She'd heard all the stories about mermaid drowning men and women, she knew that wasn't outside the realm of possibilities and she _knew_ the mermaid knew, since she'd mentioned the practice just a second ago.

But was that what she'd been trying to do? Laura didn't know if it had been a heat-of-the-moment thing or an attempt for murder, but in the end it didn't change anything.

For a second, she'd been too vulnerable. She'd trusted the woman would tried to kill her and her crew _repetitively_. She shouldn't have kissed her at all.

"Nice try, beauty." Laura stood, needing to get out of there and fast, only to realize it probably wasn't a good idea to walk out with only a soaked undershirt that left nothing to the imagination. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the girl. "But it's not 'cause I enjoy t' tricks that I necessarily fall for 'em."

For a fraction of a second, there was no reaction, up until a haughty smirk made its way onto the mermaid's face. Part of Laura crumbled at the proof that it had really been a trick, yet she couldn't shake off the impression that girl's eyes held something akin to hurt. It didn't matter either way, of course. There was no reason to be affected after all: She was just a murderous mermaid, and one that was apparently of no use at that.

"Too bad I like to know t' name o' t' lass I take to bed, let alone t' species." Laura grinded her teeth, speaking more as a reminder to herself than anything else as she stepped over the beam and headed for the door, transparent shirt be damned. If her crew wanted to see her tits, then she was beyond caring

"Lydia." That melodious voice came from behind her.

"Wha?" Laura asked, turning around. The girl's grin was gone, but she was staring right at Laura, not any less provocative.

"The name of the beauty. It's Lydia." Laura had no idea why the girl -Lydia- had shared that, but she nodded and turned back around. It felt like a present somehow, or maybe an apology. Perhaps both. Laura had no idea, but as she left the cabin, she felt like a wall had fallen between them, for the better or worse.

Malia was waiting for her outside the door, looking bored.

"Ye been waitin' long?" Laura asked. Malia just shrugged.

"Anythin' new?" Malia replied, ever unwilling to partake in small chat. Laura sighed.

"Aye. T'was all for nothin'. I thought if she was swimmin' near us meant we were close, but that was a lie. She has no idea." And since Lydia didn't know, then Laura was back to square fucking one.

 

Laura didn't stay away for long, but when she came back, the mood was different. The tension was still febrile, thick enough for Laura to trip over, but the curiosity and frustration had let way to apprehension. Neither Laura nor Lydia said a word as Laura walked back to the stool and soaked a sheet in the water, squeezing the excess water before pressing it to the mermaid's tail, but Laura would have sworn she'd heard a small gasp coming from the younger girl. When she chanced a look at her, though, Lydia's lips were shut tight, her eyes tracking Laura's hands.

"Ye must be starvin'." Laura said, even though she hadn't brought any food with her. She hated being the one to break the silence, but the stillness in the room felt so much worse. Only, once the words had left her mouth, she realized how true it must be. Her own stomach was growling and she'd eaten that morning, so she couldn't imagine what it must be like for a mermaid who hadn't eaten in days.

"I could eat." Lydia whispered, gnawing her lip. She continued before Laura had time to stand up and fetch something. "If you let me go, I could find something myself."

There it was again.

Laura huffed, irrationally annoyed. She'd come back to do her job, in part, but mostly to end that exact conversation with her first mates. Scott and Boyd had been insistent that they should release the mermaid, especially now that she had nothing to give them, but Erica and Derek had thought it foolish to give her the chance to attack  them again. Lydia had tried to kill them after all. They didn't owe her anything, and especially not to be spared.

"Or, I could get ye fish." Laura countered, sighing. She had no idea who she was going to side with yet.

She didn't want to kill Lydia, not after having been trailing her for so long and trying so hard to keep her alive for the past few days. Killing her now seemed like a waste. Plus, there was also the fact that irrationally, Laura didn't want the girl hurt. But there wasn't only her feelings on the line: the truth in the matter was that Lydia had almost killed Laura's crew once, was still a danger to them, and as captain, Laura couldn't let any threat unattended.

Still, the idea of hurting Lydia was burning like a flare in her stomach

"If you're not going to let me go, then what's the point?" Lydia asked. Her voice was soft, eyes still on Laura's hands, and though Laura expected the fight she'd seen so many times in Lydia over the past month or so to surface, she couldn't find it. Lydia didn't look sadden, and Laura couldn't tell if it was because she was at peace with her possible demise or if she didn't think she was going to die at all.

The second gave Laura a shock of hope, and she tilted her head to the side, looking down upon the girl.

"Tell me." She pleaded, hoping for a foolish second that it wasn't all in her head. "Tell me how 'is could end without me killin' ye." Suddenly, Laura wanted nothing more than an escape, a way to get this over with.

Lydia met her eye then, and Laura knew, she just knew, that Lydia had a way, a deal or some other form of miracle to help her swim away from all this alive. Laura dropped her hands on her thighs and leaned forward, needing to hear whatever the girl had to say.

She knew it was safer to kill the mermaid than to release her, but for some unfathomable reason Laura desperately wanted to let her live.

Lydia stayed quiet, looking in Laura's eyes as though assessing what she saw there, and Laura stared back, hoping to convey how she wanted nothing more than to help her. She couldn't shake the feeling that the fear in Lydia's eyes was for Laura, not herself, and as the silence grew longer, Laura grew apprehensive.

"If I help you find the treasure, would you let me go?"

Laura sat back, sagging. Lydia was lying, obviously.

"Ye already told me ye couldn't sense it." Laura hissed, frustrated. It was mostly towards herself, though, because she knew that if she could find to slightest hint that it was possible, she'd let the mermaid go.

The worst part was that she wouldn't do it for the treasure, she'd do it for Lydia's freedom.

"I can't." Lydia agreed, pursing her lips worriedly. "But I have ears, and I've spent three days in the ship of some cruel woman who had a tendency to brag."

Laura froze.

They hadn't had time to discuss what Kate had done to Lydia, and by the proud way Lydia ignored all and any injury she might have, Laura had a feeling they probably never would. It was maybe for the best, truthfully. Laura didn't know what she'd do if she was given any details on what exactly had riddled Lydia in blackened veins and ripped up fins.

"T' Argents?" Laura asked, voice low and deadly even to her ear. She didn't get it, though. Kate was a bitch, and she'd hurt Lydia, both of which were more than enough to condemn her in Laura's book, but what did that have to do with the treasure and her parents wrecka-

Unless.

No.

"No." Laura growled, standing up so fast the stool tipped over. She didn't care though, didn't bother picking it up. "No, yer wrong. Kate be a world class whore, a scurvy riddled, bilge-suckin' dog, but she ain't done it. Thar was a storm that day. That's all it was. That mongrel would've bragged long and hard 'bout takin' down t' Hales o' t' _Hellbound Curse_ if she'd-"

"Unless she didn't know." Lydia butted in. Laura stared at her, every muscle bunched up, ready to fight or flee at the words leaving the pretty girl's mouth.

"Do you know what she said when she _caught_ me?" Lydia snorted as she continued, as though the word caught was a joke. "I was swimming around the area you'd come sailing to when we met, hoping I'd find the remains of the wreckage, when you came back. I _thought_ you had come back, at least." She looked disgusted, mouth torn into a self-depreciating frown. "All your ships look the same from down below, you know? The worst is that I didn't even have time to make it to the surface to mock you that a sail fell in and I got stuck in it. _That was it_." Lydia laughed humorlessly. "The _idiots_ had lost a mast on a clear, windless day and I was at the worst place at the worst time. Just dumb, stupid _luck_." She spat the word angrily.

Laura could only stare back, thinking about how that was the last thing she would have expected. Lydia seemed so strong and undefeatable in the ocean, breaking their boat and making their lives hell, it seemed impossible that something so stupid could have eventually been the death of her.

But then again, Laura remembered the scale they'd found in their small net, indicating Lydia had at least wrestled with it, if only for a second, and then pictured the Argent sails, so big they could be identified from up to two leagues away.

Finally, she thought of her one and only encounter with a shark, how it had snapped their paddle in half but hadn't been able to chew its way out of their net. The wood of the hull was sturdy, but one sharp rock taken to it with enough force could no doubt pierce it. A sail though, a sail didn't break when hit with force. It bent with the motion.

"She said this must be their lucky grounds." Lydia mimicked, voice going high and angry. "That they had given chase to _The Blind Atlantis_ a few miles away, had shot Deucalion's ship down in the foggy night right as the Hale Storm had started." People didn't typically name storms, but this one had been particularly disastrous, remembered mainly by the biggest and most unexpected loss that had resulted from it.

"T' _Blind Atlantis_ isn't sunk." Laura answered dazedly.

"I know. It's from ear dropping on _their_ crew weeks ago that I found out about you and your search for the renown lost treasure. Long after the storm." Lydia whispered slowly, letting it sink in.

"Then who did Kate-" But she didn't need an answer. Both _The Hellbound Curse_ and _The Blind Atlantis_ were black vessels, slick and easy to mistake for one another. Their sails and flag were strikingly different, of course, but if the storm was starting? Her parents had probably taken them down to navigate ahull.

On land, Laura remembered the fog being so dense one couldn't see their own feet. If it had been even remotely similar at sea…

"How many people do you think sailed through there a night of such tempest?" Lydia asked softly.

The answer was obvious. There was the Mahealani and the Hales, no one else would have been so foolish. And since the Mahealani ship was easily identifiable, painted with the many colors of their home, no one would have mistaken them for pirates.

"Could ye show me where it happened?" Laura asked, voice thick. Lydia nodded.

"She said a few miles out, pointed the direction. If they would have tried to make it to land, then I know of a small island they may have tried navigating to. I can sweep the ocean bottom, see if there's anything to prove that …" _Prove they'd been sunk_ , Laura thought bitterly.

For a second, she considered the fact that Kate would have been the kind to watch a wreckage burn and pillage it herself, but she was reminded that Kate was above all a coward, and with a storm coming in, she probably would have ran for the hills.

"What's to say ye'll keep yer word?" Laura asked. Suddenly, she felt all the hours of sleep she'd missed on during the past few days hit her at once.

"Because you saved my life." Lydia asked, eyes intense in a way that made Laura shiver.

"For information, nothin' else." Lydia grinned, small and gone in a second, but she didn't call Laura on her lie.

"It doesn't change anything. I'd be dead without you. I can be appreciative of that fact, no?" Lydia said. "Though, I was probably a little too…thankful upon waking, and I apologize for that." Laura was probably hallucinating from the lack of sleep, but she could have sworn the mermaid's cheeks had taken a rosy tint. "I have little else to offer as a sign of my gratitude."

And here Laura thought they could avoid mentioning that altogether. Though now that Lydia was admitting it hadn't been a ploy (or at least not completely, though Laura still had her doubts about that) but rather something she'd felt obligated to do, Laura felt even worse. She'd never asked of anything of Lydia, especially not _that_.

As though reading her mind, Lydia glared at Laura. "That being the _treasure_." She hissed, and Laura blinked.

Oh.

Then what the hell had that been back there? Though, Laura herself had taken part to it without any ulterior motive aside from desire, so who was to say I was any different for the hostile mermaid?

Laura shook her head clear before such desperate grasping had the time to settle for good.

"Aye." Laura nodded. She stood and made her way to the door. At the sound of confusion coming from behind her, she explained. "I need to discuss it with me crew. And get ye food." She added as an afterthought. She didn't wait for a reply before exiting the room.

****

Laura watched the red shadow move through the water silently, tale occasionally breaking the surface, and signaled for Meredith to turn slightly westward as they trailed their guide through the waves.

It wasn't a conversion Laura wanted to have with her crew again anytime soon. Those who hadn't been aware that the murderous mermaid had been on board with them had felt angry and betrayed, and probably rightfully so. Laura almost expected a mutiny when Laura finally announced the turn of events to them, and was surprised when there were none.

A few of them didn't hold back from cussing when Lydia had been carried out, of course, but Lydia seemed to have found it amusing at most, so Laura didn't intervene.

Malia and Erica had been the most skeptical of them and, unfortunately for Laura, they were also of those who's opinion she valued the most. Malia was certain that the girl didn't know anything and was trying to play them, while Erica was mostly worried that if Lydia truly knew where the treasure was, she would keep it for herself.

What made it even more difficult to decide was that Cora and Derek refused to offer opinions at first, too distraught by the story Laura passed on to them to make decisions. Laura understood them of course, she could still feel a slight tremors in her arms and legs, and thus decided not to push them. When they finally decided, however, they happened upon another conundrum.

Cora wanted to give it a go, if only to know for certain if it were true, and Derek refuse to acknowledge the possibility at all, glaring at Lydia like she was the one who'd personally killed their parents.

And then there was Laura, who knew where she stood. She had only hoped she wouldn't turn her best mates against her when she announced her final decision.

She hadn't, as it turned out, and she was worried the crew had too much trust in her considering that her decision was mainly based on her emotions, but as she watched the red spot keep within seeing distance from the ship, she felt a little less guilty about that.

Her nerves weren't loosening up though, quite the opposite. With every league they travelled, Laura felt more unease fill the pit of her stomach. For the first time in a long while, she hoped they wouldn't actually find anything. She was okay with it being an accident, for her parents to have been casualties of the sea. Or, at the very least, she'd come to peace with it. But if it had truly been murder, no matter what her parents had done to deserve it, she didn't think she could handle it.

Someone had purposely taken her parents away from Laura.

Suddenly, the red shadow disappeared under the water and Laura raised a hand to signal the crew to slow down the ship. A  few seconds later, Isaac called down that there was land ahead.

Laura hadn't even known that there was an island around here, almost as far from the coast one could get without crossing into another ocean entirely. It wasn't all that far from their last search point, to which they'd been heading anyway, but they had still been sailing for little under a day following Lydia after they'd finally arrived to the presumed Mahealani-Hale cross point.

The place where Kate probably spotted their parents. Laura shivered, thinking about how if it had taken them the whole day to get there themselves, how badly her parents must have tried to get away and survive.

Upon approach, Laura realized why she'd never heard of the place. It was little more than a rock formation rather than an island, with sand that had gathered around the shore and where a handful of trees had manage to grow. It was about twice, thrice the size of the ship, true, but it was also so low Laura could almost see on the other side of it.

They anchored the ship some distance away where only one or two rocks rose high enough to pierce the water surface, worried they might hit something were they to sail closer. There was no sign of food, no stock and clearly no one resided on the island, and though Laura had never harbored the idea that her parents might have survived the wreck, the proof of it- if they truly had shipwrecked here that was- was disheartening.

With practiced ease, a few row boats were lowered into the water and advanced with care through the labyrinth of jagged ends and hidden stones, leaving Laura and her siblings trailing back in one of their own.

Laura spared a thought to Lydia and where she might be hiding, but for the most part her mind was solely on the island and how, even lighted by a gorgeous sunset, looked broken and miserable. It looked like a horrible place to end one's life.

The water stirred next to her and Lydia's head slowly rose out, looking dispirited. Even completely soaked, Laura had a feeling that the wetness in the girl's eyes wasn't solely that of the sea. Lydia didn't say a word, eyes slowly moving from Laura to Cora and Derek, raising both hands out of the water. There was an object in each, and it took a second for Laura to understand what they were.

The first was a piece of metal that had clearly had better days. She watched Derek trace the H, the E and the L shaped indentations twice before her breath caught and she sobbed, reaching for the broken piece of her parent's escutcheon plate. The metal was rusted from being in the water for so long, the golden paint and the black oil used for the lettering almost completely gone, but the water hadn't sanded it down enough for the grooves that made up the letters to have disappeared.

The second object in Lydia's other hand made Laura's blood run cold. It was a canon ball, not unlike the ones they themselves carried on their ship, only this one carried the Argent's trademark arrow on its side.

None of them spoke for a second, letting it all sink in, before Derek stood up, canon ball in hand, and rocked the boat precariously as he threw the ball as far as he could. Laura couldn't find it in herself to reprehend him, didn't say a word as he roared and screamed at the open air. Cora was crying hysterically, angry words Laura couldn't decipher spat from her mouth, though she knew her sister was probably talking about the opportunities they'd had but missed to take their revenge. If only they had known.

God. If only they had known.

Laura couldn't take it anymore. Between a second and the next, she'd dove overboard and swam towards the shore, not caring about the unseen obstacles probably in her way. She felt the pull of her unused muscles after a second and pushed harder, putting all her anger and guilt and sadness into the motion.

Her parents had been so close, yet she _knew_ , like she'd known all along, that they had never made it to shore in the storm.

In fact, they probably hadn't even seen it a quarter of a league away.

 

Lydia found her before the sun began to rise, sitting between two bigger boulders on the other side of the island. Originally, she'd had her feet dipping in the water, but she'd watched the water rise to her seat before the tide lowered again, leaving her looking at the water and the mermaid's sad face down below.

"I needn't yer pity." Laura growled, jumping down on a rock below her, flat and slightly above the tide. She sat on it and removed her boats.

"I don't-"

"Shut it! Just…" Laura hadn't meant to shout, but  she was too angry to take it back. Lydia didn't look upset either way, so Laura didn't bother trying and removed her still drenched coat instead. "Leave me to me fury."

"Who said anything about not wanting you to be angry? You should be." Lydia shrugged and helped tug Laura's belt off, throwing it on a further rock. "But why be angry alone when you can be angry with _me_."

Somehow Laura had known it would end this way the moment she'd seen the mermaid's face break through the surface and stare up at her, waiting silently. Still, she hadn't realized Lydia had known it too.

Apparently she did, though, since she tugged violently on Laura's pants as Laura furiously stripped out of her shirt.

"Aye. And what can ye bring that I can't have alone?" Laura grunted. She didn't care about her undergarments as she slipped into the water with Lydia.

Lydia, who was a mermaid with a penchant for sinking ships. Who'd tried to drown Laura probably more than once, the most recent of which most likely being the last time they'd been remotely intimate with one another. Who'd Laura had almost had killed in return.

And here Laura was, pulling Lydia forward with coarse hands and pushing one of them into her dripping hair, crushing their lips together in the middle of the goddamn ocean, too fed up and angry to care. She trusted Lydia, not for the first time, and she didn't give a fuck if she wasn't meant to. Keeping her head above the surface by balancing herself on an unseen rock below, she slide her other hand down Lydia's tale to rub her thumbs harshly on the fins there.

Lydia threw her head back, gasping.

"What's with t' fins, oi?" Laura growled as she bit down on the expanse of skin offered to her, slipping her lips lower until her mouth was just below the water line, tugging on a sweet, pebbled nipple with her teeth. She was worried she might have been too harsh, though, and apologized silently by grazing her nails on the first fin she could find.

Lydia was groaning, digging her fingers in Laura's arms so hard Laura was certain she'd bruise. "They, ahhh-" Lydia curled inward and sucked on Laura's ear before breathing into it. "They can feel vibrations. In water. Up to a mile away." Looking up, Laura could see Lydia's eyes clenched shut and her lips parted. "They're ridiculously sensitive."

Laura could only imagine. If her clit had been sensitive to the slightest vibration as well, she probably would have enjoyed her stays at Peter's brothel a lot more.

"Good?" Laura raised her head above the waves to ask, but wasn't patient enough to elaborate before she dove back a few centimeters lower to hatch onto the nipple, letting the hand she had lying in Lydia's hair lower onto the neglected mound. Lydia didn't seem to need explanations though, and with her nose and eyes above the water, Laura could see Lydia nod frantically.

Lydia, for her part, was focused on getting Laura out of her remaining clothes and, between shudders and moans, let her hand explore every new inch of skin exposed to her. Before long, Laura only felt cool water and surprisingly strong hands caressing her body, and the mix had her trembling as well.

Laura didn't know if Lydia had a lot of encounters, but she was still surprised at how little time it took to bring her to the edge. Soon her nails were digging into Laura's sun kissed skin with more force than Laura dared to use on the mermaid, probably enough to leave her bleeding, as though she rather than Laura was the one boiling with rage and violence. Her eyes had grown darker, lips curled back over teeth that were more fangs than pearls, and Laura knew she should have been scared, but instead she was powered on by the display. She wanted Lydia to lose control. She _needed_ her to.

With a whistling scream and breathy moans that sounded like music to Laura's ears, Lydia crumbled to pieces in her arms and sighed. Laura could barely keep her feet on the stones below, the moss making her slide slightly, but she still hoisted herself and Lydia above the water, waiting for her to come back to herself. The water made it easier, of course, but Laura enjoyed the feeling of some of her anger burning away with the stretch of her muscles, and Lydia stroked her toned biceps, as though impressed.

Lydia pulled away after a second and pushed Laura towards the flat rock behind her. Laura had half a mind to ask her what she was doing, missing the feeling of Lydia's breasts against her own, but before she could speak, Lydia had slipped under water. Laura felt the girl's hands on her hips and, more quickly and effectively than she had anticipated, she was pushed up and half onto the rock, chest up to the sky.

It should have uncomfortable, and as far as Laura knew, it probably was. Only she wasn't feeling a thing aside from the hands spreading her legs just below the black waves. With a groan, she felt fingers moving along her folds and tried to reach down for, god, anything Lydia would let her hold on to, but she couldn't see a thing below the surface. The rock was slightly slanted, probably the only reason why it wasn't killing her back, and soon she found herself slipping off. In a moment of lucidity, she grabbed onto neighboring rocks.

There was something erotic about the way Laura was bare for anyone to pass by and see while Lydia was safely tucked away from sight, mouth finally, _finally_ , attaching itself to Laura's lips, the eldest unable to cover herself or help in any way as she held on for dear life, completely vulnerable. The morning wind was frigid against her wet torso, making her nipples pebble almost painfully in response.

With a gasp, Laura felt Lydia enter a finger in her, quickly followed by another. The digits explored, as though unfamiliar with the journey they were partaking in but having a slight idea what they were meant to do, and Laura was hit by the realization that this was probably Lydia's first time with this version of the female body. The thought alone was almost enough to make her climax, along with the confident way Lydia prodded the sensitive parts inside of her that Laura herself couldn't reach.

She only tipped over the edge when Lydia's mouth connected again, sucking hard on her clit and grazing her teeth to it. Laura shook as her orgasm took over, unable to hold on anymore and letting go of her grip. She slid back into the water, Lydia following suit and sucking her through the aftermath.

When Laura rose to the surface, she noticed for the first time the pink shade the sky was turning into as the sun rose and felt, for the moment at least, serene. Lydia was watching her gazing at the sky, eyes glinting excitedly, and Laura pulled her closer into a gentler kiss. While it only lasted a second, it helped settle Laura some more.

"Your crew was able to reach most of the treasure when the tide got to its lowest." Lydia said as Laura climbed onto the rock again, this time to get dressed. She wasn't whispering or mincing her words, probably aware that the last thing Laura wanted was to be treated like porcelain.

When Laura failed to answer, Lydia grew more direct. "What are you going to do with all that gold?"

There it was. The million guinea question, and the one everyone asked mockingly ever since the moment it was known that Laura had taken it upon herself to go looking for her parent's treasure. Only now, Laura did have the treasure, and Lydia really was curious.

Laura tugged on her pants and glanced at the mermaid.

"Nothin'." When Lydia raised an eyebrow, Laura continued. "It was ne'er 'bout t' money. I didn't care if all thar was left o' t' wreckage was a pair of trousers. It's all I have left of me parents, and I didn't want some nobody fool to waste it away." She reached for her shirt.

"So you'll just carry it with you as cargo?" Lydia asked, sounding disappointed. Laura didn't quite understand why, considering Lydia wanted to leave it waiting around herself. Still, she understood.

"Nah. It would weigh us down, make us too slow." Laura took her belt and wound it around her waist.

"Too slow?" Lydia's eyebrow furrowed, and she looked lost. More than that, she looked frustrated at the very idea of being confused, and Laura couldn't help but chuckle.

God help her, but the mermaid was cute.

"Aye." Laura nodded. "Now that we found me booty, I need another mission." She stooped down to sit on her heels then, meeting Lydia eye to eye.

"I'm going to bring the Argents down." Laura promised.

Laura hadn't been sure what Lydia's reaction would be, even though the girl had talked about sinking ships herself. She was mostly worried after seeing how distressed Lydia had been at the sight of the Hale wreckage. Laura had no way of knowing if it was because of the deaths themselves or because of who they were to Laura, but Laura suspected Lydia wouldn't be interested in a murderer-to-be.

She was thus a little thrown when Lydia propelled herself upward and grabbed onto Laura's neck, slamming her lips to hers.

"Kill her for me." Lydia begged between two kisses, looking up at Laura from beneath her lashes, eyes angry. Laura could only nod as she dragged the mermaid onto the rock next to her.

Laura thought about Kate's smirk as she spoke about Laura's parent's, about her chasing down her parents and deliberately sinking them, about her hurting Lydia. She couldn't even chalk it up to it being a mistake on Kate's part, a mistaken identity, an attack on the wrong ship, because Laura knew that if she'd known it had been the Hales, she would have done the same exact thing.

And none of it excused the missing scales on Lydia's tail. Nothing could.

"I promise, beauty."Laura swore.

"Good." Lydia smiled then, a private and shy one like Laura had never seen on the confident girl before, and Laura vowed to do her best to keep it there.

"So ye'll do it?" Laura asked. Lydia frowned.

"Do what?" Laura down at the girl lying next to her, bathed in salt and dawn's first rays. The sight was enough to make her heart stutter.

"Look after me booty." Laura said nonchalantly, but the effect was lost when Lydia shot up, staring-wide eyed at her.

"Really?"Lydia whispered, her grin growing bigger.

"Aye. I can't take it with me, so I need someone to look after it. Some dog once told me he heard o' a mermaid that could rip through ships and torment seaman into retreat. Ye ever heard where I could me a lass like that?" Laura asked. Lydia laughed at that.

"My, it does ring a bell. And with all the tunnels and caves underneath these rocks, she'd probably have plenty of space to keep them hidden and dry while she hunts down the few who dare venture close." Her grin turned dangerous then, and Laura felt a spark run up her spine at that.

"Aye." Here came the hard part. "And o' course, I'd have to come by every moon or so to check on me booty." Laura gulped down her nerves as she felt rather than saw Lydia turn her way from the corner of her eye. Laura kept her eyes stubbornly on the sea "If ye so would allow, o' course,"

Laura didn't know what was going on between them, wasn't sure if Lydia wanted to see her after today, but if she knew one thing, it was that she herself couldn't imagine never seeing those green eyes again. Every sailor needed a home to come back too after their times at sea, and Laura had always made sure her crew had that, even if it was just the brothel. It was Laura's turn now, and she wanted Lydia and this crappy little island to be it.

It was quiet for a beat, enough for Laura to get worried, but then a hand reached over and covered hers.

"Could be a hardship." Lydia agreed, nodding solemnly. "But I guess I can live with that."

Laura leaned forward and kissed that arrogant sneer off Lydia's face, even though she couldn't hold back her own.

It was insane. In a few hours, she and her crew would sail off on a crusade to take down the royal navy and avenge those Laura cared most for. She'd leave, eyes on the horizon, and only return with blood on her hands.

They wouldn't be able to fake innocence then, probably already couldn't. After all, the fact that Derek had been with her the night her vessel got robbed wouldn't go unnoticed to Kate, no matter how dense she was. _The Vengeful Gallows_ would already be on the list of condemned ships, and if it wasn't, Laura would pillage and burn her way up that list until Kate could think of nothing but the fear she'd have for them.

They were going to be pirates her parents would have been proud of.

Laura would make sure of it.

But for now, during the last few instances before the sun was fully risen and the sea was still calm, Laura allowed herself to bask in the warmth of the arms of someone who, against all odds, Laura trusted completely.

Before she brought herself to leave, giving herself entirely to the sea, offering it the shipwrecks it so obviously loved, Laura let herself enjoy the one good thing it had ever offered in return.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come by Tumblr (ghost-of-erica-reyes) anytime!
> 
> (Also, apparently I need to actually say this, but please don't repost this without permission? Please?)


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